Stelis paniculata Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Stelis
Drawing by Carl Luer
EARLY
Common Name The Tufted Stelis [refers to the caespitose habit]
Flower Size .06" [1.5 mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations below 1000 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm growing, densely caespitose epiphyte with erect, proportionally stout ramicauls enveloped by 2 tubular sheaths and carrying a single, apical, erect to suberect to horizontal, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute to obtuse, apiculate, cuneate into the base leaf that blooms in the early summer on an erect, from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul, flexible, subflexuous, to 2.4" [to 6 cm] long including the to .4" [1 cm] long peduncle, successively 1 to 2, many flowered inflorescence with oblique, infundibular, as long as the pedicel floral bracts and carrying glabrous, expanded flwoers qith yellow or purple sepals, and a purple central apparatus.
"Distinguished by a dense cluster of very small, thick, elliptical leavfes and an elongating, flexuous, successively many flowered raceme. The broadly ovate sepals of the tiny flowers are .04" [1 mm] long. The petals are transverse and single veined. The lip is subglobose and concave posteriorly." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
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